in c \ Leon Ovsiew is Professor of Education and ' is Director, Educational Service Bureau, '- Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsyl- { vania.

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1 in c THOUGH humility and an awareness of limitation are also reason able injunctions for professionals in cur riculum planning, there are differences between the amateur's role and the pro fessional's. Despite its inexactness as a science, educational administration is a more informed function than common sense alone can be trusted to perform. When citizens participate in educational planning, both they and the professionals ought to be wary lest they perceive each other as equal members of the same team. They are not. It is not merely the difference in knowledge, vast and. vital.as it is. Role differences are equally great. The viabil ity of curriculum decisions depends upon mutual acceptance of both these differ ences. Procedurally, the acceptance is often reinforced by maintaining a certain social distance between citizens and the administrators they may be asked to ad vise. There are those who doubt that there \ Leon Ovsiew is Professor of Education and ' is Director, Educational Service Bureau, '- Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsyl- { vania. is a technology of education sufficiently advanced to disqualify the dilettante from its practice. Even within the pro fession, some specialists persist in an outof-joint view of administration and ad ministrators. They act as though to den)' the organizational imperatives of con trol. Those who undervalue the discipline of responsibility misjudge the rigors of decision making. Thus is organizational balance threatened; for if some canon of democratic process, or even knowledge itself, is overvalued and allowed to super sede the decision making responsibility, the integrity of the organization is by that much dissipated. The reason why American schools are continuous]) 1 planning their curriculum in so main- local places is that we are prudently stubborn about the distribu tion of power in our democracy. Most Americans insist that l urriculum decisions are good, even when some of these may be demonstrably inadequate, because someischools do go tar beyond any conceivable standard curriculum. The freedom to be different is also the freedom to be belter, and being better is the kind of efficiency and economy that cash does not have anything to do with. Such freedom is priceless. The drive to be better requires strict attention to the problems of progress, that is, to the conflict of ideas. Theories, beliefs, priorities, objectives and values

2 about the interrelated problems of money, curriculum, personnel and build ings are in violent competition in our nation. In a free society, moreover, ideas in conflict become embodied in volun tary associations devoted to their support and dissemination. The resolution of conflict, in this sense of soimehow making decisions about ideas in opposition, is the responsibility of administration. There is no other way, for all the alternatives are anarchical. Conflict among the bearers of ideas must also be resolved, of course. Administra tion deals with both ideas and people. At its most equable, administration is a strenuous life, laced by tension. A normal, -even instinctive, response to its pressures is to maintain a power struc ture within the organization that mini mizes outside influences. Conflict of ideas is a latent threat to the organization and, not so incidentally, to the administrator. The why-iook-for-trouble view'of life is not altogether hedonistic; it is more like mental hygiene. It seems too stern to counsel superin tendents against those tactics by which conflict may be suppressed or at least muted. But such the counsel must be. Success in administration must be char acterized by progress, by a reaching out for achievements beyond those already gained. If people \vish schools to improve at a rate speediey than inevitability, change must be deliberate. Deliberate change comes from the ap plication of ideas, and ideas must be sought wherever they may be found. For the decision maker, one of the more likely sources for ideas is other persons. But this creates a dilemma. If the super intendent seeks ideas from people, he runs the risk of stirring conflict which then he must resolve lest the conflict be come destructive. But safety is not the prize. It is doubt less safer, for example, not to fool with nuclear energy at all, yet u "controlled reaction" is possible and, when accom plished, may yield commercial quantities of power. Risk-taking is intrinsic in the managerial role. Perhaps setting the forces of conflict in motion may seem not so much fool hardy as unnecessary. Does not the con flict of ideas always exist? It does, but it does not always concern those problems whose resolutions make for progress. Strong feelings about superficialities are common enough and even if they are beautifully resolved the enterprise is not better off, only quieter. To be useful, the opposing ideas ought to be substantial. Getting people really concerned and creative about the things that matter is surely more dangerous than being indul gent of debates about bus routes, but the potential value makes the danger worth courting, because if usable ideas are produced the educational power of the enterprise can be increased. It is lot of trouble to get useful ideas about things that matter. The citizens curriculum committee is a case in point. Every citizens committee that gets so close to heartland may im peril the enterprise. Many administra tors risk the gambit because they per ceive the problems of school administra tion realistically. They need ideas of all kinds, and citizen ideas about curricu lum are often worth having. Therefore, administrators build a mechanism for consultation with citizens, a citizens cur riculum committee. The administrative skill required is that the committee should operate to create ideas appro priate to its competency.

3 Happily, both objectives can be clearly defined. The competency of a citizens curriculum committee is to advise the school enterprise about educational goals consistent with the community's best as pirations. Anything else is beyond its ability. Its sole function is to udvfse, never to go further in the decision mak ing process than deciding upon its own recommendations. Properly used, the citizens curriculum committee is an extension of the board's competence to make educational poli cies; that is, to state the desired objec tives of the educational program. This kind of board policy is a social judgment about education. It expresses the cduca-, tional expectations of the community. itizen committees can be expert con- sultants to both board and superintend- ; ent in defining the community's educa tional aspirations. Such consultation is the committee's primary validity. The method of the citizens curriculum committee is to debate competing ideas about educational goals. Disciplined by a clear understanding of its purpose and role and manned by persons of good sense, the citizens committee is like a furnace for idea-conflict in which it is possible to maintain a "controlled reac tion" for the generation of ideas. Its use fulness as a consultation mechanism is precisely that its control is possible in a way that unknowing argument never is. The commitee not only motivates a dis ciplined debate of educational ideas, but its definition of role as consultant (one whose power is to affect a decision be fore it is made, but not to make it) and its understanding of its purpose make the committee a mechanism for the resolution of idea-conflict as well. Its usefulness as a conflict-reducing mech anism is the citizens curriculum commit tee's secondary validitv. The citizens curriculum committee is a current vogue. Many school systems have been using the committee for some years with demonstrable success, and now many more districts are being en couraged to risk it. Its success has not been automatic; many districts have learned from experience that the fire of idea-conflict can rage out of control. Many of those who have been singed have been guilty of looking the other way, careless or betrayed by a disability endemic to administration, the disability that might be called the "public rela tions tic." Those so afflicted can be rec ognized by their habit of defending each school inadequacy with a more strenuous public relations campaign. It has not been lost on those who have a salesman's view of human inter action that a citizens group involved in school affairs may have a public rela tions use. Indeed,;a by-product of any interaction between citizens and their schools may be a gain in the conviction that yields support. (It may, of course, also be a loss,) No one will deny the need for and effectiveness of public understanding of public education. No one will gainsay the administrative efficiency of working for and meriting the support of the public. That is. most people affirm the \alue of good relations built on under standing between the school and com munity. The citizens curriculum com mittee has its legitimate PR value. Yet the step down in integrity between rec ognizing the PK possibilities of the citi zens curriculum committee to its ex ploitation as a PR device is, for some, too easy a rationalization. If PR exploitation is the administra-

4 live a he citizens curriculum commit tee is compromised. Instead of being consultative, instead of generating and recommending new ideas, the committee becomes a kind of flying buttress for ad ministrative decisions already made or intended. This is not merely the error ol substituting the form for the.substance: worse, jt perverts the honored demo cratic principle of managing the enter prise in the expressed interests of its constituents into another means for ma nipulating public opinion. "The citixens committee," these salesmen-administra tors seem to be saying, "is useful not for its ideas, but for ours. There is another reason for the citixens committee vogue. The citizens committee may be perceived not so much as a PH buttress but rather as a shield for ano nymity, a way to hide from responsi bility. To minimize risk, even though it means reducing potential profit, is a temptation beyond the resistance of tinmore timid or bedeviled superintendent or board. How fine an armor is a com mittee whose recommendations can I s holy obligation! "We asked a sampling of our finest citixens," the school's officials say. "and they told us; now, being democratic, we must do as they say." If arrows of censure are later shot, they may bounce off the committee', never reaching the vital /ones. It's too easy a stratagem to be right. for how can the school administration continue to defend the integrity of its decision making power once it accepts consultation as decision? The ultimate potential conflict between recommenda tion and the judgment of those legally responsible for deciding cannot be so painlessly avoided. The currency of re sponsibility is, inevitably, risk. Still, none of man's devisings is proof against debasement. Just because its form can be used to give the appearance of consultation should not dissuade those who have the insight and courage to use consultation for all its worth. No one who has any responsibility for operating American schools can allow to lapse his stake in the principle that the freedom of local school districts to be different is the same freedom that permits one to be better than another. The American faith in administration is in its leadership capacity, not its caretaker arrangements. No people have believed more strongly in the concept of progress or in their own ability to progress than Americans. That is why conformity, risklessness, de serves to be viewed with alarm. The raw material of progress is an idea, a notion about what is valuable and good, what is, in fact, letter than what is already possessed or achieved. Aspiration's are ideas about purpose, and in an educated and able society aspira tions are constantly on the rise. Consulta tion with citizens is an excellent means for defining and agreeing on ideas about aspirations, and the responsible leaders. of a social enterprise seek these ideas so as t'o increase the probability of prog ress. When a school system is urged on toward advanced goals by its constitu ents, these goals become realistic, how ever far in advance of present practice they may be. American school system organization makes possible the trans lation of the aspirations of quite small groups of citizens into reality. Where the possibility exists, the consultation offered by citizen committees provides a swift vehicle for progress. It has its age 3

5 tion on industry, labor unions and other groups. Teacher workshops in econom ics, science and class use of community resources are wide]}' offered and, at tended. Seminars and conferences on a wide range of subjects useful to teachers have proven popular. Business-Industry- Education Days have gained favor allover the country. Scholarships, fellow ships, research grants and endowments of professorial chairs have been estab lished to encourage improved teaching and serious intellectual effort. A number of associations, companies and organiza tions also offer awards for outstanding teaching achievement. Special interest groups also render con tinuing service through maintaining liai son with authors, editors and publishers of textbooks and other instructional ma terials and with educational societies and associations. In this way up-to-date information and illustrations are at the finger tips of those persons who take leadership roles in shaping programs of instruction. It should indeed be encouraging to educators that more and more industrial and business groups, voluntary organiza tions and other, special-interest groups are demonstrating real concern for help ing to prepare young people for a happy, productive place in society. The key to the effectiveness of the relationship lies in the educator's proper performance of the responsibility to choose teaching materials and methods within the policy set by the community. The schools will not be overloaded with outside materials and programs so long as they base acceptance of each upon the answer to the question, "What body of knowledge, skills and understanding does this organization, individual, mate rial or program offer which is significant and important for students and teach ers'^' Immeasurable progress can be made when school forces are joined by those from outside to work toward common objectives. The ultimate result can be a higher calibre of citizenship, a pretty good test of any educational program. dangers, as most power-laden mecha nisms have, but it certainly has its uses. Yet consultation is still only consulta tion and, like any advice, is no better than its source nor more definitive than its use. Committees must be chosen for their quality; advice from persons whose judgments are not backed by valid cre dentials of prior performance are un likely to engender the respect of (Decision makers. Representativeness is not an especially valuable criterion of a com mittee's worth, except for polling. But the committee is a poor polling device. What is wanted from a committee is reasoned judgment such as may emerge from sustained intellectual vigor. Good advice is, of course, likely to be persuasive to decision makers. If the relations betweeri committee and ad ministration are characterized by mu tual understanding of function and role, if the administration is ready to use ad1 vice to inform its decisions, while still insisting on its prerogatives, if no prom ises requiring abdication of responsibility have been made, then the advice of the citizens curriculum committee is likely to be deeply effective. At its best, its use will add practicality to curriculum plan ning for achievements that go beyond the current.

6 Copyright 1961 by the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. All rights reserved.